Explosion on the golf course

I awoke to the howling of my brother’s French Bulldog Boobah. He was named after a friend he’d met in Senegal while serving in the Peace Corps.

“Shut up you bastard,” I called.

I brewed a pot of coffee with the consistency of road tar and poured it my favorite mug, which is roughly the size of a football helmet. With my nerve endings twitching madly I fired up my laptop. I checked my E-mail, and then moved on to the news. It was Bush this and Bush that. Bush got a new dog, Bush mispronounced another word, Bush gave more tax breaks to the rich and on and on and on. I was growing weary.

On the way to work my thoughts centered on the election signs still in people’s front yards. Mine were still in my front yard and would remain there until they were as battered as the masts on a fleet of haunted ships.

The work day turned out to be a day like any other. Nothing distinguished from any other except lunch, which I forgot to bring. I’ve got to stop having days like this or the next thing I know it will be the day I’m going to die.

I sneaked out of work early that afternoon so I could play a few holes of golf. I didn’t say goodbye to anyone. Goodbyes are over rated; useless bits of sentiment that only make you feel good about yourself for being thoughtful enough to let everyone know what you’re doing. I don’t like people to know what I’m doing. My policy is to keep them guessing. No one likes a predictable friend or colleague, they’re boring.

After some small talk in the pro shop I made my way to the first tee. The wind whirled around me, pelting me in frigid bursts that sent ripples through my jeans. It felt like someone was rubbing my legs up and down with a snow cone, this actually happened once but I won’t go into detail.

Yes, I was wearing jeans. I shun “normal” golf attire. I find the current state of golf fashion with all its pleats and stiff collars to be an overstatement in the practice of elite conformity. I have a good friend who refuses golf shoes and instead wears steel toed shit kickers. He sucks just as much with his Wolverines on as he does when he borrows a pair of my golf shoes, so why ask you would he want to pay a $150 dollars for a pair of shoes?

I looked out across the vast expanse that was the golf course and realized I was the sole individual playing the front nine. I like having a golf course all to myself. I put on my headphones and turned on my MP3 player. I turned up the Ramones which is what I like to play golf to. Punk is the anticoagulant that thins my viscous blood. When I’m old and my veins are thick with cholesterol I will spit out any medication they give me and instead turn to the healing powers of Punk. It will keep me heart ticking. I’m attracted to the anarchical side of it, to the loudness, to the anger.

At any rate, I was playing like shit. I didn’t have my driver because the head had flown off the previous week in a strange mishap involving a beverage cart girl named Cynthia, a six pack of Miller Lite, and two friends who will remain nameless. No one was seriously hurt but my driver was trashed so I had to make due with my three wood and things were not going well.

Despite my poor play I hit a relatively good tee shot on the 5th hole but it veered slightly right and landed in a bunker just off the fairway. “Stupid, goddamn club,” I said. I took out a protein bar and gnawed on it as I walked down the fairway.

In the bunker I eyed my shot and slowly eased into my backswing but before I could bring the hammer down there was a terrible explosion the caused me to smash my club wildly into the sand. The vibrations rose up through my golf shoes and into the flesh of my legs. I quickly scanned the skyline looking for Three Mile Island. What first flashed through my mind, other than the fear, was the thought that perhaps a crazed horde of radicals had finally done it, that this might be the end. In the next instant a strange calm overcame me, and then a wave of relief. I was okay with the idea of going out of this world while standing in a bunker. Looking forward to it? As the seconds passed and a torrent of radioactive destruction didn’t bowl me over I came to the realization that the explosion must have come from the quarry down the road.

“Bastards!” I yelled. “You fucked up my shot.”

If the world wasn’t going to end I needed to end my golf game before it got dark. I placed another ball in the sand and without penalty swung.

“Take that you cock suckers,” I yelled as my ball sailed into another bunker.

I stepped out of the bunker and looked into the setting sun. This was not going to be a good golf day but at least it was another day.